Viewership sank by double-digits for both the Alabama and Notre Dame spring college football games. In other news, ESPN put up mixed numbers for recent MLB coverage, and FS1 scored its top MLB audience of the young season — albeit with a small sample size.
Fewer Viewers For Bama, ND, Spring Games
- The Alabama spring football game scored a 0.4 final rating and 547,000 viewers on ESPN Saturday afternoon, down 31% in ratings (from 0.55 to 0.38) and 27% in viewership (from 751K to 547K) versus last year. Keep in mind last year’s game had a direct lead-in from the NBA Playoffs. The 2015 game aired on SEC Network, which is not Nielsen rated. On NBCSN, the Notre Dame Blue-Gold game had 127,000 earlier in the day — down 18% from last year (155K) but up 13% from 2015 (112K).
Mixed Numbers For Sunday and Monday Night Baseball
- Nationals-Mets had a 0.9 final rating and 1.4 million viewers on the latest edition of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, up a tick in ratings and 10% in viewership from Red Sox-Astros last year (0.8, 1.2M) but down 44% in both measures from a Mets-Yankees Subway Series game in 2015 (1.6, 2.4M). On Monday night, Cubs-Pirates had 555,000 — down 23% from Yankees-Rangers last year (719K) and down 3% from Nationals-Braves in ’15 (571K).
FS1 Hits Early Season MLB High
- Fox Sports 1 earned a 0.4 final rating and 587,000 viewers for Cardinals-Brewers Saturday night, its most-watched game of the young season (five telecasts). There was no comparable window last year or in 2015. Earlier in the day, abbreviated coverage of Nationals-Mets had a 0.3 (flat) and 379,000 (-17%).
(Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 4.25, Nielsen)
